31
LYRIA
Orthani looks untouched.
That’s the first thing that hits me as we pass through the outer gates—not relief, not safety, just the wrongness of it pressing in from every direction. The stone walls rise clean and pale against the sky, unmarred by smoke, untouched by the chaos we left behind, and the air feels different here, sharper somehow, like it’s been filtered and polished until nothing real can cling to it. It smells faintly of metal and cold stone, sterile in a way that makes my lungs hesitate before accepting it, like my body expects ash and blood and finds neither.
“They didn’t feel any of it,” I mutter, the words slipping out before I can stop them.
Verr hears me anyway.
“They felt it,” he says, his voice low, his gaze fixed forward as we move deeper into the city. “They chose not to respond.”
“That’s worse.”
He doesn’t argue, and the silence that follows settles heavier than any disagreement would have. The streets don’t slow for us. People move as they always do—measured, composed, their eyes flicking toward us just long enough to register the disruptionbefore sliding away again. Even covered in dirt and dried blood, even with the weight of what we just came through clinging to us like something that should be visible, we’re just another disturbance passing through a system that doesn’t acknowledge it.
It makes my skin itch.
“Is this it?” I ask, glancing at him as we pass another row of identical stone structures, their surfaces too smooth, too deliberate. “We just walk back in and everything goes quiet again?”
“For them.”
“And for you?”
That makes him look at me, not long, not openly, just enough that I catch the shift in his expression before it locks back into place.
“No.”
Something in my chest loosens at that, just slightly, enough to remind me it’s still there.
We don’t make it far past the inner gate before the space around us tightens, not in a way that would draw attention from anyone not looking for it, but deliberate enough that I feel it immediately. Movement adjusts at the edges of my vision, boots striking stone in patterns too clean to be incidental, armor catching the light in narrow flashes as figures step into position ahead of us without breaking the illusion of normal flow.
I slow.
Verr doesn’t.
“Keep walking,” he says under his breath, the words barely moving his mouth.
“That’s not?—”
“Lyria.”
The way he says my name stops the rest of the sentence before it forms. It isn’t louder, isn’t sharper, but there’s something in it that doesn’t leave room for argument.
So I walk.
Three steps.
That’s all we get.
“Lord Verr.”
The voice comes from ahead, smooth and practiced, carrying just enough authority that no one needs to raise theirs to reinforce it. The soldiers are already in place, already aligned, already closing the space in a way that makes it clear this was decided long before we stepped through the gate.
They block the path without looking like they’re blocking it.
Ahead.
